Our brothers’ keeper but for how long?

Many Vietnamese in the United States have fond memories of Filipinos and our country when we opened our door to them in the 1970s as they were escaping political persecution from the victorious forces of the communist North. In fact, those Vietnamese who had been granted permanent political asylum in the US as American allies during the Vietnam War have kept in touch with the Filipinos they have befriended in and out of the Bataan Refugee Processing Center.

They, the Vietnamese, came in droves as  the original “boat people” to reach our shores. They were primarily educated people, teachers and government officials of vanquished South Vietnam. Had they not gambled riding rickety boats (many in fact died in the high seas), they faced death or slavery under the Vietcong.

The Bataan Refugee Processing Center served as home away from home for the Vietnamese refugees as their asylum papers were being processed for admission to the US. Many are now successful entrepreneurs and professionals in the US; not a few have come back to the Philippines to visit as tourists.

Now, our government is once again opening its door, this time to the Myanmar “boat people” who are escaping alleged persecution as Muslim minorities. Reports are that Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand are wary of accepting the Myanmar refugees for lack of documentations. Indeed, as a signatory to a United Nations agreement on the treatment of refugees and as a humanitarian obligation, the Philippines’ welcoming stance on the Myanmar refugees is most laudable.

However, let’s call a spade a spade that unlike in the case of the Vietnamese boat people ultimately bound for the US, the Myanmar refugees may see the Philippines as their ultimate asylum destination. Meaning, that they may come to stay here in our country for good.

Of course, that opens a lot of questions including how we are to feed them in the long run considering the big number of Filipinos who are also hungry. If the Bataan refugee camp was funded by UN and foreign charitable funds, where would the funding come for the present-day refugees?

  

But the biggest question is, if the Myanmar and Bangladeshi refugees are to stay in the Philippines for good, how do we 

assimilate them into our society? -end-

 Image by youtube